For the executive heart of the half a billion pound Abu Dhabi campaign to reshape Manchester football's balance of power, Garry Cook's office in the low-rise block on the Eastlands forecourt is remarkably unremarkable. Small, grey, functional, a partition wall between him and his shirt-sleeved troops, this is a world away from the marble floors and golden chandeliers of the Emirates Palace Hotel, where Cook's ultimate boss, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, meets the family to chat about City's progress.

From Cook, some of whose public appearances have not produced notable PR triumphs since he was appointed as City's chief executive by the previous owner, Thaksin Shinawatra, in 2007, there is, up close, palpable enthusiasm for the club's rebuilding. City watched United's turmoil over Wayne Rooney last week with some satisfaction, as a measure of the progress made since Mansour bought the club from Thaksin in August 2008 and began to pour in money and resources.

Beyond Roberto Mancini's holding remarks, suggesting City might be interested in Rooney, neither Cook nor anybody from the club commented and they deny that any offer was made. But they were pleased that, rather than chasing world- class players like Kaká and not landing them, City were cited without question as the other club most likely to sign Rooney. While Sir Alex Ferguson strives to argue that hisodd, frugal collection of signings over the past two years has nothing to do with the mountainous cost of servicing the Glazers' £769m debts, Mansour is investing huge money into City. He has assembled for Mancini a muscular squad with which the manager now says he is happy, notwithstanding Sunday's 3-0 home defeat by Arsenal. The fans, generally, are along for the ride, Cook and the Abu Dhabi regime making consistent efforts to reassure them their support is valued. At Sunday's pre-match memorial to the former City manager Malcolm Allison, Cook's speech was noted by fans as a respectful homage to the club's golden age.

"Is there an overarching philosophy?" Cook asks. "We want to be properly successful and among the European elite but we must remember our roots and we must remember our supporters. The history and heritage of this football club are dear to us."

Discussing City and the annual report for 2009-10, which showed income up to £125m but exceeded by the stellar wage bill, £133m, and a £121m loss, bankrolled by Mansour, Cook is as keen to emphasise the all-round work as he is the lavish accumulation of players. They have, he says, spent £255 per paying fan on improving and humanising the Eastlands concrete bowl; they have a designated "head of supporter experience", Danny Wilson, leading a department to nurture fans' loyalty. They built City Square, the first decent area to eat, drink and gather, and one of Cook's touches was to move the ticket office inside so that fans, in one of the world's wettest cities, no longer have to queue in the rain.

"Yes, the annual report shows income growth and the loss, which people are asking questions about," says Cook. "But when you look from a broader perspective, there are investments not only for the team but for the fans. The aim is to enhance the experience of this football club for all those that touch it."

This, not just the money-no-object signing of players, explains why City fans from the Bluemoon website clubbed together to produce the banner opposite the directors' box, from which the owner has watched one match: Manchester Thanks You, Sheikh Mansour. For some it is embarrassingly craven, from a once great industrial city to an absentee owner, but the gratitude is another wholesale contrast to United, whose supporters are in open rebellion against the Glazers.

Dave Wallace, sixty-something editor of King of the Kippax and the embodiment of grandfather-as-fanzine-editor, reflects: "I will always believe supporter-ownership is the ideal model for football clubs. But if we can't practically have that, you want owners who invest in clubs and show some understanding of fans. I think City fans do appreciate the care this regime is taking and their efforts to engage with us."

That, of course, is not what the rest of football primarily sees when contemplating City. They see players on eyewatering wages bought with £500m by Mansour, whose family claim the oil wealth in an Arab emirate run on clan politics not democracy. City, led by the chairman, Mansour's trusted executive Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, Cook and Brian Marwood, the chief football administration officer, have serially outbid other clubs for players, made Aston Villa the £26m offer they could not refuse for James Milner and paid whatever wages it takes, nudging £200,000 a week for Yaya Touré.

Fans alienated by the Premier League's commercialisation complain that such buying of success by club owners is not football, not in the English game's tradition until Jack Walker at Blackburn in 1995 and Roman Abramovich at Chelsea since 2003. Other clubs argue the spending is seriously inflating wages generally, as witnessed in Rooney's restlessness. Mansour's funding of City has also, critics say, fuelled an unhealthy, previously alien culture, in which fans yearn for a rich saviour to throw money in. As Portsmouth fans can lament, such genuine gold-plated, benefactor-style billionaires are few in the world.

When this is put to Cook, the former Nike brand manager seems genuinely bemused. Watching from Abu Dhabi, Mansour saw English clubs available to buy, Abramovich spending £700m building Chelsea, the clubs with the most money always dominating. His lieutenants can barely understand criticism of Mansour, for investing money and spending it professionally, while the Glazers suck cash and goodwill from United.

'Critics only have their own perspective," Cook argues. "They're not at the football club, they haven't been part of the planning or the long-term financial strategies. People think we choose players from the fantasy football league but there was a clear plan for who Roberto wanted to sign. One of the perceptions was that we only buy foreign players, then suddenly people saw that six of the England team who finished against Switzerland were City players.

"When people see the good things we are actually doing, they seem to be enlightened." Yet while the Premier League still has no regulations to prevent Glazer-style "leveraged" buy-outs, City must negotiate Uefa's "financial fair play" rules, designed to prevent overspending pumped up by rich owners. Last year's £121m loss, with this year's certain to be higher, vastly exceeds Uefa's permitted limit of €45m over the three years between 2011 and 2014, so City risk exclusion from the European competitions Mansour demands.

Cook recites the plan to break even: gain success on the field and commercially, invest in the academy to produce young players, who will gradually replace the better paid stars. That, though, takes time that City do not appear to have.

"Clearly our intention is to comply," Cook says. "Our two-year plan was to take a budget and build a competency to compete at the highest level, not forgetting the need for succession planning in every position. We are pleased with how that worked and will not be signing players to the same level of intensity in the next transfer windows.

"Financial fair play is on our conscience, we talk about it at every board meeting and it's part of our long-term plan."

Cook, though, is keen to communicate that the buying of players, and how to make the books balance, is far from all they talk about. There is an intimate connection with Abu Dhabi, via multiple sponsorships, which some argue represent further Al Nahyan patronage but Cook says are genuine commercial deals. Mansour is intensely aware that what happens at City reflects directly on Abu Dhabi's image, which is also marketed on the theme of embracing progress while respecting tradition.

Cook points to 155 new staff taken on in all departments, thorough investment in what was a run-down club and now the plans to develop land around the stadium in partnership with a grateful, cash-strapped city council.

Sir Howard Bernstein, the council's chief executive, who has met Mansour and Khaldoon, in Manchester and Abu Dhabi, came away encouraged. Of the discussions he says wryly: "They're very sophisticated, always discussing what they can put in, rather than get out – which separates them from any other Manchester City owners I've spoken to."

Cook stresses City's community work, too, as evidence of a commitment to be good citizens. He is researching City's foundation, in industrial Gorton in 1894, by the family of Arthur Connell, vicar of St Mark's Church, to provide a wholesome activity for deprived local lads.

"Every organisation has to understand what it is at its core," Cook says. "City began as a social good and that purpose must inform everything we do."

Which, presumably, was what he was preparing to tell Paul Stretford, if City's interest in gazumping United had solidified into serious discussions, about wages of £200,000 a week.